Your First Six Months: A Plan

Most beginner losses come from doing things in the wrong order. This is the order.

Before you buy anything

Decide the amount. What you would be comfortable losing entirely. Not unlikely to lose. Comfortable.

Check you have a buffer. Three months of expenses, outside this, in ordinary money. If not, this is not the next thing to do.

Start the spreadsheet. Eight columns, before the first transaction, not after the first tax year.

Month one

Choose a venue. Authorised where you live, checked in the public register. Supports withdrawal to your own wallet. Bank transfer available. Fee schedule published.

Complete verification before you want to buy, so you are not waiting during a price move.

Enable security. Authenticator application, backup codes written down, phone number removed as recovery, withdrawal allowlist on.

Make a small first purchase. By bank transfer, using the order book rather than the simplified buy button. Record it in the spreadsheet.

Month two

Set up a recurring purchase. Same amount, same date. This removes the only decision that matters and it is the change that most improves results.

Set up a wallet. Test the restore before funding it. Record the first address.

Withdraw a small test amount to it. Confirm it arrives on a block explorer.

Month three

Withdraw the accumulated balance beyond your working amount.

Learn one block explorer. Look up your own transactions. Find the token approval tool.

Delete the price app from your phone. There is no pending decision, so there is nothing to check.

Months four to six

Nothing. The purchases happen automatically. The spreadsheet gets a row each month.

Read about mechanisms rather than prices. How the thing works is genuinely interesting and does not prompt any action.

At month six, review. Total contributed, total value, total fees. The fees number is usually the surprise.

What not to do in the first six months

Buy anything outside the largest two assets. Trade. Use leverage. Connect a wallet to an application you found through a link. Chase a yield. Tell anyone the amount.

Each of those has a documented failure rate among beginners and none of them is necessary.

The one-line version

Buy a small amount of something established, on a schedule, through a regulated venue such as a regulated exchange such as Collect & Exchange, withdraw periodically to a wallet you tested, record everything, and then go and do something else.

That is the whole thing. It is boring, and being boring is most of what works.